Gorilla Grodd Goes Home: The Flash Season 2, Episode 7 Review
The episode in which an injured Barry uses his IQ as well as his MPH to save the Star Labs team, after conquering his fears with the help of family and friends.
After he's convinced himself that he let Central City down by not saving them in episode 6, and worse yet embarrassing himself in front of the very people who gave him a key to the city. He overcomes his crisis of confidence and a broken back by running on a treadmill faster than any of us ever have.
Lame.
The only thing I can think of is that this underwhelming episode is to prepare us for an overwhelming Arrow crossover episode.
The one wow factor that can't be denied: visual effects. Grodd is amazing. The intricacy of this gorilla as a physical being, along with the human emotion you'd see in a movie like King Kong, not on a TV show like The Flash, is impressive.
Check out the entire Grodd fight scene:
There were flashes (haha) of wonderful-ness in this episode. Henry Allen, Barry's other - notice I didn't say real - dad is back, after Iris somehow reached him on his solo trek in a remote national park. (They really do have wifi everywhere now.) Foreshadowing of Wally West, apparently Joe's other son, although Joe and Barry's heart-to-hearts just get better by the week.
Harry Wells the Annoying playing Harrison Wells the Evil, having to be coached by Cisco to be evil. And failing. Grodd says, "Father never ask. Father take," which pretty much sums up season 1.
Hilarity, too... Caitlin giving Grodd a Genetics 101 lecture in a dark basement lab after being kidnapped. Grodd taking fire escapes 3 at a time, then going through the breach to a place he'd feel more at home: a gorilla refuge in - according to the map - Rwanda? Finding out Joe West can cook, although that lame chicken soup story for an under-the-weather Barry fooled his new detective girlfriend Patty for all of zero seconds. (Just tell her you're The Flash already.)
Cisco not even getting inside the theater, let alone to first base, on his date with Kendra Saunders because he got a Hawkman vibe, which he realized in the First Date Redux is actually Hawkwoman.
(Or, as we in the know know, Hawkgirl of Legends of Tomorrow, which needs to be its own show already. All of this LoT setup on The Flash, and even more so on Arrow, has been exhausting and results in uneven quality.)
Funny/sweet: there are people on The Flash writing staff who think Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" is, despite being a hit 30 years ago, still a great date-night sound track.
Like King Kong, Gorilla Grodd seems to be a romantic at heart. I think he would approve.
Coming up next, episode 8, part one of The Flash/Arrow crossover:
